Under The Weather
by Tirainy
Summary: The flu season is in full swing and this year Sonic, among other people, becomes one of its unfortunate victims. Naturally, Shadow takes a temporary role as the hero's caretaker.


**Under the Weather**

The flu season is in full swing and this year Sonic, among other people, becomes one of its unfortunate victims. Naturally, Shadow takes a temporary role as the hero's caretaker.

 **TAGs:** One shot, Writing Exercise, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Established Relationship, domestic, fluff, fluff and angst, angst, where did all this angst come from, oh right, Shadow remembers his time on ARK, sick fic

 ** **Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.****

* * *

"Have you tried that _thing_?! It tastes absolutely awful!"

"That still doesn't change the fact that the medicine obviously helps you, so, _open up_."

"I feel better than yesterday," Sonic protested weakly, trying to suppress his cough—because it irritated his sore throat and maybe Shadow would put that vile stuff that pretended to be medicine away if he looked like he didn't need it.

Shadow gave him an unimpressed eye, clearly telling him the other was not going to fall for such a blatant lie. To be honest, Sonic would be alarmed if Shadow _did_ , considering the fact Sonic had a runny nose, was wincing every few minutes when he had to use his aching muscles to roll into another position, and his body was radiating such amount of heat that Shadow _had to_ feel it even through he wasn't directly touching him.

Sonic tried to take deep breath to suppress the scratchy sensation in his throat but instead ended up heaving and coughing again as his abused throat constricted violently. He could feel warm hand rest between his shoulder-blades, rubbing the area reassuringly, and Sonic slowly felt the coughing subdue. Unwilling tears prickled in his eyes as his throat felt _raw_ from all the coughing and, Chaos— "Ugh, just get the stuff here," he said and rolled over to lie on his back again, accepting his resistance was futile.

Knowing from Tails how quickly he could change his mind on these things, Shadow didn't hesitate with pouring a spoon of the reddish liquid onto the spoon, and then using his free hand to help Sonic prop himself up to take the spoon into his mouth.

Sonic did his best to swallow before the taste of the stuff—Sonic _refused_ to call it a medicine—could fully register in his brain. He grimaced and made a small "Yuck," when it finally did. This thing didn't taste or even _smell_ like cherries as it was advertised on the packaging.

Though it _did_ soothe his throat as promised. They hadn't lied about that part. He let out a pleased hum.

"See? I told you so," Shadow remarked with a hint of smug satisfaction at being the one in the right. However, it didn't irritate Sonic as much as it normally would, because of the way Shadow's gaze softened, the agent clearly happy that Sonic had allowed him to make the hero's discomfort just a tad smaller—that expression was just one of Sonic's weaknesses.

Shadow put the supplies away, and just a moment later a gloved hand rested on Sonic's cheek, caressing it affectionately. "Anything else I can help with?"

"I want your immune system," Sonic replied in deadpan, honestly envious of the agent's quick recovery period; they had both gotten ill at the roughly same time but, apart from him, Shadow had spent only two days dealing with the flu and it wasn't even nowhere near as bad as Sonic—if Sonic rated how bad his experience was at a scale from 1 to 10, he'd say he was currently 8-ish while Shadow had been somewhere around 4 the whole time.

Forty-eight hours of which most Shadow spend by sleeping away the day and it was somehow enough to make him look like he was never sick in the first place. How could Sonic not be envious of that?

Shadow gave a small chuckle. "I fear I can't help with that," he said, shifting his hand to rub one of the blue triangular ears.

Sonic wanted to make an unhappy noise at the answer, but by the time he managed to get his vocal chords to work, Shadow's hand was already drawing a rumble of the opposite kind out of him.

"...and can't you grab an Emerald and heal it away or something?" he suggested between the small happy noises that were leaving him, the hero fighting back the sleepiness that Shadow's gentle touch was enveloping his tired mind in.

"Chaos healing works on injuries, not sickness," Shadow explained, letting out an amused snort. "Sickness is not injury even though it might feel like one."

"How is it not? There's obviously something wrong in there, otherwise it wouldn't hurt," Sonic pointed out.

"Let me elaborate—I can deal with symptoms but not the cause. Your immune system has to take care of that."

"...How about you give it a small boost?" Sonic continued, trying to find any way how to shorten his misery. "Make it more efficient?"

The hand on Sonic's ear stopped its ministrations and the agent shifted uncomfortably. "Immune system is a delicate thing," the agent explained, his voice sounding oddly strained suddenly. "I'd rather not mess with it."

Sonic raised a curious brow. Chaos healing was a very delicate procedure in itself but Shadow had never hesitated with using it onto him regardless of how minor his injuries were. Sonic felt there was some story in there.

Shadow met his inquisitive eye. At first it seemed like the agent would try to steer the conversation away, but then he gave a defeated sigh, let his hand fall back into his lap and began to explain.

"When Professor created me, his initial plan was to to use my white blood cells to replace Maria's defective ones. Of course, first he needed to figure out how to remove hers and get her body to accept mine. But then when he found out I was capable of controlling chaos to a degree, he was excited about the prospect of me curing her directly and changed his plan accordingly. He made me study numerous biology books so I would know everything about human anatomy and physiology, so I'd able to safely identify the abnormalities in Maria's body and fix them.

"I studied them diligently and practiced chaos techniques on the side to hone my skill. I was convinced that I could do it. I learned the hard way I didn't—I was young and lacking experience; I still had a lot to learn when it came to controlling chaos and how it worked under different circumstances."

Shadow paused, crimson eyes getting a faraway look in them as the agent traveled down the memory lane. "After one training session, I ended up with a deep gash across my palm. About here." The fingers of Shadow's left hand traced a curve from Shadow's right thumb to the in-between of his middle and ring finger. "I thought trying to heal it could be a good practice so I tried it."

"It didn't go well?" Sonic guessed.

Shadow gave a huff. "That would be one _hell_ of an understatement." The red eyes turned to his inquisitive green and Shadow explained, "I blasted two of my fingers off."

"...Oh." Sonic's gaze fell to the other's currently clenching hand. He had always believed that Shadow had been naturally talented when it came to working with chaos since birth—or, well, _creation_. The idea Shadow might have struggled with controlling chaos never even occurred to him... Ever since they had known one another, Shadow was ingrained into his mind as _the_ expert when it came to chaos. Though he guessed it wasn't surprising that Shadow would strive for becoming an expert on chaos after suffering a such traumatic injury as this; sure, he might have ridiculous healing capabilities that made him able to regrow every single tissue that ensured he wouldn't actually be left with a permanent injury, but still...an event like that would be impossible to forget even if the evidence of it was gone.

"The confidence I had in my chaos skills took a giant dive after that. I was scared to even try something simple as chaos spear, fearing I would end up exploding some part of my body again. Over time, Professor managed to talk me into practicing again; he even got some ancient texts on chaos translated and made a sort of textbook of them in hope it would help me."

"And did it?"

"Well, very few of the texts were actually useful, mostly just myths and recounting of deeds of chaos users. Though there was one that helped me figure out what I've done wrong the first time. Healing with chaos was ridiculously easy after that," Shadow replied. "However, I was still apprehensive of messing up and so I kept to only practicing on myself. It was months before I even dared to try to heal someone else. Eventually I did manage to get comfortable working on other people but when it came to healing Maria...

"I would get nervous and that's no good when you try to heal with chaos. It's as if you have a surgeon with shaky hands that is supposed to operate—just a recipe for disaster. So I kept stalling for time, practicing and practicing and hoping experience would help me get rid of my nervosity...and then suddenly it was too late."

Tan lips pressed into a thin line as Shadow closed his eyes, obviously fighting back the painful emotions the memories were bringing back. Wanting to offer the other support, Sonic reached out and curled his bare hand around Shadow's gloved one. The crimson eyes revealed themselves again at that moment, Shadow looking first at their joined hands and then at him directly. Neither of them said anything and Sonic just gave the other a look that clearly said the agent didn't need to continue if it pained him. Sonic knew ARK was a touchy subject to Shadow and even though he cherished the moments Shadow would let him have a glimpse into such an important era of the agent's life, he didn't want it to be done on Shadow's expense.

However, the agent didn't take his unvoiced offer. Instead Shadow just gave him a small smile in return, an appreciative squeeze to his hand in return and continued, "When I think of using my powers the way you suggested, I remember her and think how I felt anytime Professor would bring it up..."

Shadow paused again, his eyes getting that distant look again. "Sometimes I wonder—If I cured when I was supposed to, would the incident even happen? If she had been healthy, she could have returned to the planet and explored it as she wanted. She could have been long gone from the ARK when the military decided to shut it down. She could have been..."

Knowing where this was going, Sonic forced himself to sit up, ignoring how his aching body protested against the movement. "Don't," he murmured, freeing his hand from the other's hold to use it instead to get Shadow to look at him. "You had no idea that would happen. You just wanted to be careful. You made the _right_ choice. Don't let anything convince you otherwise."

Shadow gave a tired sigh, leaning his forehead against his own, dark eyelids falling closed again. "That's easier said than done."

Internally Sonic agreed with Shadow's words, but aloud he didn't say anything. After all, when you felt like you were to blame for something bad—regardless of the fact you couldn't have ever seen the thing coming—then that feeling wouldn't just go away because someone told you to. You'd always find a reason why it was your fault. The best thing you could do was to try not to think about it.

An idea crossed Sonic's mind. He knew he was currently sweaty as hell, thus probably also didn't smell the best and he definitely _didn't_ need to be any warmer but— "Wanna cuddle?" he asked, wanting to offer Shadow at least some way how to distract himself from his dark thoughts. Sure, there were _better_ ways, but cuddling was about as much as Sonic was capable of at the moment so for now that would have to do. The better ways would have to wait for once he didn't feel like coughing out his lungs.

The other looked at him with a bit of a surprised look, obviously unsure where had that idea come from. But then realization flashed in red eyes and after a moment Shadow just nodded his head tiredly.

They settled on the bed, laying face to face, legs tangled and arms wrapped around one another. Shadow even went as far as to wrap them up in the blanket. Sonic felt like he was in an oven just with Shadow's arms around him, let alone a blanket atop him, but he didn't protest the action. He just shifted closer to the other, tightening his arms around the dark body and feeling Shadow do the same in return.


End file.
